


Wrap Me Up, Unfold Me

by chicagoartnerd



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I don't have Friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicagoartnerd/pseuds/chicagoartnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But why would you listen to me? I'm just your friend."<br/>"I don't have Friends!"<br/>The emotions were genuine but the words were wrong. But he couldn't apologize and he couldn't back down. There was no way to make John see. What had he done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrap Me Up, Unfold Me

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Sia's "Breathe Me" which I listened to while writing this to get a good angsty mood going. But not to worry it is Hurt/Comfort so there will be comfort. This is for Holmeslice on Tumblr who wanted a fic related to the trailer scene. I hope you enjoy!

There was simply no time to argue with him.

He didn’t understand. He never would it seemed. 

Like every one else in Sherlock’s life John’s propensity for ignorance seemed limitless. He was only going to make things worse, so very much worse.

“But why would you listen to me? I’m just your friend.”

His vision went white with suppressed rage. Friends. He had never had them and didn’t see why everyone was so damn well keen on getting and keeping them. Who needed that connection? It would only rip you apart. Friends were breaches in a perfectly fine hull, friends were a burden and a sadness. Friends and the companionship they offered were insufferable and beautiful and completely unattainable. He had never held any illusions about what people thought of him. They had made it completely impossible.

But instead of breaking down, letting them grind up all the brilliance and beauty in him he had told them to sod off. Who the fucking hell needed people? What with their inane wants and insipid needs and dull boring words and thoughts. All predictable and utterly useless.

Certainly not him.

He had no use for people other than to pin them down, take them apart, and dissect the dirty most intimate parts of their lives for a minor diversion. Because that was all other people were to him. That’s all they could ever be. He refused to make himself affable and numb like the rest of them. So the word friend was a loathsome title. That whole relationship, the codependence and intimacy of it would be the destruction of all that he was.

So of course every ounce of repressed hate, fear, and anger he had harbored over the years erupted from him in that moment,

“I don’t have friends!”

It was true. Every word. But it still felt wrong. The emotion behind it was correct but the words were wrong.

And when he met John’s purposefully blank stare he couldn’t say anything to correct it. It was like he had thrown away carelessly, effortlessly, heinously thoughtlessly, something of unimaginable importance. And he didn’t know how to take it back.

The cold realization that he couldn’t didn’t offer any comfort. In fact it twisted whatever shard of a heart he had even harder in his fragmented chest.

His face no longer contorted in rage, was also no longer blank. He wasn’t quite sure what it was doing but from the look on John’s face it wasn’t good. John seemed unsure, not angry, not hurt. But concerned. That was unexpected. This whole situation was a complete and utter mess. He shouldn’t be feeling anything at all, let alone this, anything but this. This is why he didn’t have friends, because he never wanted to feel this way. To feel at all.

“Sherlock?”

The softness, the tenderness in his voice was like a physical slap. It hurt far worse than any punch John could have given him.

And suddenly he was crying.

He hadn’t cried without shamming since he was nine.  It was when Mycroft had left for study abroad and he had fallen from a tree and broken his left arm. It was a simple misplacement of footing and not taking in to account the rain the night before. His deductions were not as sound then and the mistake was a hard one. Seeing the radial bone poke through ones wrist was enough to bring grown men to tears or fainting so he wasn’t embarrassed to admit he had been weeping.

But this was completely different.

He couldn’t understand for any reason why he should be crying now, in front of John of all people. He should have stopped but to his horror found he couldn’t. The pain between the two events was not dissimilar but that should have been impossible. The invisible agony he was experiencing shouldn’t exist. This was why he couldn’t, mustn’t have friends.

And suddenly there were warm arms around him, pressing him close against a firm jumper-clad chest. He froze, his entire body going utterly rigid. No one touched him like this. Not since Mummy had all those years ago. He hadn’t allowed any one to get close enough to because when they did they had never liked what they had seen there.

Why didn’t he leave? Why was he sitting there taking his acerbic words with a studied expression? What would it take to drive John Watson away from him when denying their relationship had any meaning to him meant that the bloody man would hold him and not let go?

He was an utter enigma and Sherlock couldn’t think right now. His head was pounding and his eyes were burning close to blindness and he collapsed. Gave in to it. Let the comfort offered there wipe away any doubt, shame, or self-loathing. He could get to it when his brain turned back on and rebooted. For now it felt all right, better than that really, to let himself be comforted for once in his adult life.

He wasn’t sure when his silent sobs turned in to stuttering breaths and finally shallow breathing. Time has disappeared and John had not moved in the slightest even though he was sure his shoulder must be stiff and uncomfortable by now. He wasn’t sure how to disentangle himself with any dignity. So eventually he splayed his hands carefully on John’s chest and murmured,

“John.”

His voice had come out much more hoarse and lower than he had intended and he almost cursed at how weak he sounded. But John had slowly let go and he allowed him to stiffen and pull back in to a sitting position. He didn’t meet those knowing blue eyes. He was nervous as to what he would find reflected there. Instead he saw John stand out of his peripheral and whipped around to face him.

Why was he leaving? Was this truly the end?

But those guileless eyes had trapped him once again and he couldn’t look away this time.

“If you don’t want to call me a friend that’s fine.”

And with that he turned to leave. Before any thought crossed his mind for the first time in ages he simply reacted and stumbled to his feet clumsily reaching out for John’s wrist and holding it tightly.

“I don’t have friends because none will have me the way I am. Do you see John?”

John’s posture shifted noticeably and Sherlock had to force himself not to tense for the incoming punch. But it never came. Instead the full force of those eyes were eating away at him again,

“I’ve said this before and I know you hate it when I repeat myself but you are an idiot. There are so many people who care for you even though you’re a great brilliant prat. In fact in spite of it. So you might not call them friends and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that they damn well aren’t.”

He dropped his wrist like it had suddenly turned in to a glowing fire poker. And John sighed and started towards the stairs up to his room. This time he couldn’t make his feet move. His arms hung limply at his sides. For once in his life, or more accurately since he could form coherent speech, Sherlock Holmes was struck dumb.

When words finally found him it was too late. John was gone to his room upstairs and it was too late. The words slipped from his lips any way in to the empty cacophony that was 221 B,

“John. You are so much more, there is no word for what you are.”

The thought then struck him it might be a worthwhile endeavor to invent one. But now was not the time or the place. He only hoped it had been enough. That some how he had said enough for John to understand what he meant to him.

He had a terrible feeling he hadn't.

And this was precisely why he never got involved, never tried to feel. He sunk back in to his chair by the fireplace and put his mind to the task of categorizing exactly what John was to him. It was a harder task then first perceived and he spent all night at it and well in to the dawn of the next day.

Nothing seemed to fit in to place as his mind whirred behind steepled fingers playing back every smile, twist of hands, gunshot, and dirty dish that John had ever done. Nothing came close to even touching it so much so that that was in fact the answer. When one eliminated the impossible, what ever remained, however mad, was the truth.

So when John came thumping down the stairs to make his morning cuppa Sherlock was waiting there. Coiled up with latent force waiting in his sleek leather chair. John made it half way towards the kitchen before he stopped under the piercing weight of his gaze and turned to face him.

Suddenly all the words dried on his larynx. All of the things he had wanted to say left him sitting there staring like a fool.

“I…there isn’t a word.”

It was not what he had meant to say and he wanted to shake himself for acting like a bloody bumbling imbecile. But he stopped when he saw the smile spreading widely across John’s features, reaching his eyes and setting them alight.

“Okay. That I can live with because in all honestly I wouldn’t exactly call you a friend either. There is more to it than that. Just like you said they haven’t invented a word for it yet. But you invented the term ‘Consulting Detective’ so I bet given long enough you could figure one out. If there even needs to be one I mean.”

He was suddenly smiling too. It was like the first crime they solved, like their first true night as companions when they had laughed like mad men. It was wonderful and for the time being it didn’t need a name.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come up with one eventually, because although labels were tiresome they seemed to help the oblivious masses move on around them. And John said now was not the time to be dwelling on it. There was tea and casework to be had, and oddly enough some one to have it with. It was more than he had ever dared to want. And as dysfunctional and madcap as it was, it was perfect.


End file.
